Scribd Logo
Upload

Welcome to Scribd!

  • 191 views

    Anecdotes

    Uploaded by

    Neil Scarth
    Lauritz Melchior recalled how he met his future wife Maria Hacker. As he was singing in a garden, she parachuted from a plane and landed at his feet, which he took as a sign they were meant to be. They married in 1925 and remained so until her death in 1963. At a ball thrown by Fanny Ronalds in the late 1800s, both Leonard Jerome and August Belmont claimed to have paid for the extravagant party. James Cagney had an excellent memory, as demonstrated by an incident where he recognized a man across the street from decades ago and was able to correctly identify him to his skeptical wife.

    Copyright:

    Attribution Non-Commercial (BY-NC)
    Download as DOC, PDF, TXT or read online from Scribd

    Anecdotes

    Uploaded by

    Neil Scarth
    191 views5 pages
    Lauritz Melchior recalled how he met his future wife Maria Hacker. As he was singing in a garden, she parachuted from a plane and landed at his feet, which he took as a sign they were meant to be. They married in 1925 and remained so until her death in 1963. At a ball thrown by Fanny Ronalds in the late 1800s, both Leonard Jerome and August Belmont claimed to have paid for the extravagant party. James Cagney had an excellent memory, as demonstrated by an incident where he recognized a man across the street from decades ago and was able to correctly identify him to his skeptical wife.

    Original Description:

    Miscellaneous classroom documents, English Academy,Varna

    Copyright

    © Attribution Non-Commercial (BY-NC)

    Available Formats

    DOC, PDF, TXT or read online from Scribd

    Did you find this document useful?

    Is this content inappropriate?

    Lauritz Melchior recalled how he met his future wife Maria Hacker. As he was singing in a garden, she parachuted from a plane and landed at his feet, which he took as a sign they were meant to be. They married in 1925 and remained so until her death in 1963. At a ball thrown by Fanny Ronalds in the late 1800s, both Leonard Jerome and August Belmont claimed to have paid for the extravagant party. James Cagney had an excellent memory, as demonstrated by an incident where he recognized a man across the street from decades ago and was able to correctly identify him to his skeptical wife.

    Copyright:

    Attribution Non-Commercial (BY-NC)
    Download as DOC, PDF, TXT or read online from Scribd
    Download as doc, pdf, or txt
    191 views5 pages

    Anecdotes

    Uploaded by

    Neil Scarth
    Lauritz Melchior recalled how he met his future wife Maria Hacker. As he was singing in a garden, she parachuted from a plane and landed at his feet, which he took as a sign they were meant to be. They married in 1925 and remained so until her death in 1963. At a ball thrown by Fanny Ronalds in the late 1800s, both Leonard Jerome and August Belmont claimed to have paid for the extravagant party. James Cagney had an excellent memory, as demonstrated by an incident where he recognized a man across the street from decades ago and was able to correctly identify him to his skeptical wife.

    Copyright:

    Attribution Non-Commercial (BY-NC)
    Download as DOC, PDF, TXT or read online from Scribd
    Download as doc, pdf, or txt
    of 5

    Gift From Heaven "When I was a struggling musical student," the famed heroic tenor Lauritz Melchior once

    recalled, "living in a small pension in Munich, I was sitting in the garden one day, learning the words of a new opera. As I sang the words, 'Come to me, my love, on the wings of light,' there was a flutter, a flash of white, and there sitting at my feet, was a beautiful little creature who had dropped right out of the blue. "It was Maria Hacker, a diminutive Bavarian actress. Stunting for a movie thriller, she had jumped from an aeroplane and landed, parachute and all, practically in my arms. And that was She. I thought that she came to me from heaven. I still think so..." [They were married between 1925 and Hacker's death in 1963.] Party to the Affair? In the last years of the nineteenth century, Fanny Ronalds, then the talk of the town, threw a grand themed ball to which only the creme de la creme of New York society was invited. Her costume (she dressed as the spirit of music) was the finishing touch on an evening whose extravagance remained unrivaled until Truman Capote's notorious Black and White ball in the 1960s. Two decades after Mrs. Ronald's glorious ball, Leonard Jerome and August Belmont, two of her most devoted admirers, fell into conversation. "Do you remember Fanny's celebrated ball?" Jerome asked. "I most certainly do," Belmont replied. "After all, I paid for it." "Why, how very wasted," said Jerome after a moment's pause. "So did I."

    James Cagney
    (18991986)

    ANECDOTE...

    James Cagney's wife often commented on her husband's memory. In one story she told, she and Cagney were getting into a car in New York City when he spotted a man across the street. Cagney pointed him out and said, "His name is Nathan Skidelsky. He sat next to me in school." Mrs. Cagney was doubtful. Prodigious memory or not, she couldn't believe that her husband could identify someone he hadn't seen for decades. So she challenged him to prove that his claim was true. Cagney accepted the challenge, crossed the street, and talked with the man. "And you know what?" Mrs. Cagney said. "It was Nathan Skidelsky. The only problem was, he didn't remember who James Cagney was."

    Salvador Dali
    (19041989)

    ANECDOTE 1...

    Dali once took his pet ocelot with him to a New York restaurant and tethered it to a leg of the table while he ordered coffee. A middle-aged lady walked past and looked at the animal in horror. "What's that?" she cried. "It's only a cat," said Dali scathingly. "I've painted it over with an op-art design." The woman, embarrassed by her initial reaction, took a closer look and sighed with relief. "I can see now that's what it is," she said. "At first I thought it was a real ocelot."

    George Washington
    (173299)

    ANECDOTE...

    Early in the Revolutionary War, Washington sent one of his officers to requisition horses from the local landowners. Calling at an old country mansion the officer was received by the elderly mistress of the house. "Madam, I have come to claim your horses in the name of the government," he began. "On whose orders?" demanded the woman sternly. "On the orders of General George Washington, commander in chief of the American army," replied the officer. The old lady smiled. "You go back and tell General George Washington that his mother says he cannot have her horses," she said

    Douglas Fairbanks Sr.


    (1883 1939)

    ANECDOTE...

    As he was driving back to his mansion, Pickfair, Fairbanks saw an aristocratic Englishman with a familiar face walking along the road in the heat. He stopped to offer him a ride, which the stranger accepted. Unable to remember the man's name, Fairbanks invited him in for a drink, and in the course of conversation attempted to elicit some clues as to his visitor's identity. The Englishman seemed to know many of Fairbanks's friends and was evidently well acquainted with the estate, for he made approving comments on some recent changes. Eventually Fairbanks's secretary entered the room and Fairbanks whispered "Who's this Englishman? I know he's Lord Somebody, but I just can't remember his name." "That," replied the secretary, "is the English butler you fired last month for getting drunk."

    Ferenc Molnr
    (18781952)

    ANECDOTE...

    Molnr and a friend had been given complimentary tickets for a particularly uninspiring play. After the opening scene, Molnr decided to leave. "You can't walk out," hissed his friend. "We're guests of the management." Molnr reluctantly returned to his seat and sat through a few more lines of dialogue. Then he stood up again. "Now where are you going?" asked his friend impatiently "To the box office," replied Molnr, "to buy two tickets so we can leave."
    BIOGRAPHICAL NOTE... Hungarian playwright and novelist. He gained international success with such plays as "Liliom" (1909) and "The Red Mill" (1923), and also wrote novels and short stories.

    Zsa Zsa Gabor


    (1918 )

    ANECDOTE...

    Miss Gabor once appeared on a television program in which guest celebrities attempted to solve viewers' conjugal problems. The first question came from a young lady: "I'm breaking my engagement to a very wealthy man who has already given me a sable coat, diamonds, a stove, and a Rolls-Royce. What should I do?" "Give back the stove," advised Zsa Zsa.

    QUOTE-WORTHY...

    man in love is incomplete until he has married. Then he's finished.

    Queen Victoria
    (18191901)

    ANECDOTE...

    In the early years of their marriage, Victoria and Albert visited Florence several times, greatly impressed by the city's architectural treasures. Of these, the Brunelleschi dome surmounting the cathedral was their personal favorite. Victoria returned to Florence some years after Albert's death to find that the dome had been magnificently restored. She ordered the carriage to stop in the piazza outside the cathedral and rolled down the window. Opening up the locket that hung around her neck, she turned the miniature of her beloved husband to face the building, so that he could share with her the splendor of the newly restored dome. Then, after a few moments' silent contemplation, she closed the locket and drove away.

    Andr Previn
    (1929 )
    ANECDOTE...

    In order to assess their suitability for adopting a Vietnamese orphan, a Miss Taylor, who had run a Saigon orphanage, stayed with the Previn family for a weekend. At breakfast on the first morning, she asked if she might have a bowl of cereal. Eager to please, Previn reached for the health-food cereal that his two small sons consumed with delight every morning and poured Miss Taylor a generous bowlful. While she ate, he held forth on the nutritional value of the cereal. Miss Taylor made no reply, however, until her bowl was empty. "To be quite honest," she admitted, "I'm not crazy about it." Previn's glance happened to fall on the jar from which he had served Miss Taylor. "I'm not surprised," he said slowly, "I've just made you eat a large dish of hamster food."

    You might also like